Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Embodiments relate to computer user interfaces, and in particular, to user interfaces providing decision support in complex problem environments. Specifically, an individual working to solve a business problem may often seek to perform tasks such as investigating extended cause-and-effect relationships, gathering context-related information, and/or comparing and validating possible solution paths.
For example in an in-house production scenario, a material planner (MRP Controller Role) may face complex problems affecting different finished end products, intermediates, and/or starting materials. To address shortages, the ERP planner may seek to explore different possible opportunities available both within and outside of a particular business entity. Examples of such options can include but are not limited to, rescheduling of production orders, creating new supplies, and collaborating with a purchaser.
Conventionally, the material planner may be forced to manually validate and compare the various problem solution options in terms of feasibility and possible consequences (e.g. follow-up problems on the component level or capacity issues). This process of evaluating options can be roughly compared with a chess game, where the player considers a next move and tries to calculate (simulate) its consequences mentally.
In attempting to manually perform this evaluation, the material planner may lack an overview of the context of the problem, and also the cause-and-effect relationships of the possible options. Typically, the material planner may be forced to gather the related information by hand, navigating step-by-step through several levels of details involving the creation of off-line notes and extra communication that may not be recorded or reproducible.
A lack of transparency/reproducibility during such critical decision making processes, may leads to inefficiency/time loss, mental stress, and degradation of overall productivity. Also, the lack of an established procedure may lead to potentially suboptimal or even incorrect decisions being made.